Hindustan Copper Ltd. formally reopened its Kendadih copper mine in India's Jharkhand state, effective Dec. 11, after reworking the mine's business plan and obtaining all statutory clearances.
The company said Dec. 13 that it expects the mine to produce 225,000 tonnes of copper ore per year. The Kendadih mine, part of the Indian Copper Complex, was closed in February 2000 due to economic reasons.
According to a same-day report by The Hindu, the company is proposing an annual investment of about 1 billion Indian rupees, with 720 million rupees of CapEx already incurred.
Santosh Sharma, chairman and managing director of Hindustan Copper, said the company also plans to restart the Rakha copper mine.
In late August, Hindustan Copper outlined plans to invest 30.25 billion rupees in a new copper cathode plant in Chhattisgarh. The company also said it was building a 3.3 million-tonne-per-year facility at Malanjkhand to extract minerals and other material from copper ore tails.
As of Dec. 13, US$1 was equivalent to 64.39 Indian rupees.
